Spotlighting
Spotlighting
© Fox
There's a famous Fox family photo of my brothers, sisters and cousins all under 13 and each armed with a rifle of some description. It's a picture that would've cheered the heart of Charles Taylor; and though we weren't freedom fighters, as kids, we fought a war for economic supremacy over a range of fauna mostly rabbits, 'roos and foxes. I didn't know anyone at that time who didn't share our blood lust. There were a variety of missions we undertook to eradicate our lands of these low lives from chemical weapons to fumagate them, traps to ambush them, and a biological weapon called mixymytosis to blind them; however, the mission we were most enthusiastic about was the nighttime raid known as spotlighting.
There weren't any aspects about spotlighting that I didn't like and there were two basic approaches, one involved the use of polythene piping packed with mud and dirt at one end to make an effective knobkerry and the other, rifles. Because our Scoutmaster had some sense, spotlighting with rifles was banned on Scout outings. This meant that we had to settle for the knobkerry. It also meant our prey was restricted to rabbits. I've never heard of anybody taking on a 'roo with a club, though I have heard one quite disturbing story of a stoning. That aside, spotlighting in Scouts was about as much fun as a farm kid could imagine having. The basic approach was to all clamor on the front bonnet of the Scoutmaster's ancient Austin whilst we took turns holding the spotlight. The light would pan the night pasture illuminating the occasional eyes of sheep and cattle until hopefully they'd settle on the eyes of a rabbit momentarily transfixing it with blindness. A frenzied rush ensued as we scrambled off the moving Austin taking care, in that chaos, not to block the spotlight and make as little noise as possible whilst running at full tilt in a large arch to take up our individual positions surrounding the rabbit. The rabbit's situation was typically hopeless but not always. Its only option was to run the gauntlet and for us that was when the fun began. It's frightening thinking back on it now because what ensued was Rwandan in its savagery. By contrast, spotlighting with a rifle was far more civilized at a stretch something akin to the debate over chemical versus conventional warfare.
One of our neighbors was a man called John Goodman. John was the sort of guy who almost everybody admired and had an instant affinity with. He had rugged good looks complimented by a handlebar moustache, back when they were fashionable, and was something of a local sports star being coveted by the local teams for his footballing, and cricket ability as well as his general affability. He and his wife, an artist, had what could only be described as a whimsical love that lasted. His farm wasn't large enough to support his family so to supplement his income he plied his trade as a plumber. This meant my father had fairly regular contact with John. They shared a boundary fence, which was in their mutual interest to maintain, and my father had endless requirements for a plumber. So it was that John became a frequent visitor to our place and struck up a friendship with my father. Dad would wax with him nostalgically about his days as a publican in Melbourne next to the dry suburb of Box Hill where John had originally came from, and John for his part learned the ins and outs of farming from the hands of a master farmer, something my father surely was. It was well before this time, however, that dad invited John to come spotlighting with us. John had just moved to the district and dad thought it would make a nice icebreaker activity. Though I'm sure he had another term for it.
The thing about spotlighting with guns is that communication is paramount. Hardly a month went by during the spring or autumn months that the news didn't carry a story of an accidental shooting death. Whilst we had no formal training in the use of firearms we had a pretty strict routine we had to follow. For spotlighting we usually drove an old Toyota Litestout pick up and when we were out in the paddocks my brothers and I stood on the tray and used a series of knocks on the roof of the cabin to let my father know to stop if we'd spotted the enemy. It wasn't exactly Morse code more of the order of one tap for stop and two for move on, but it was the sort of thing you didn't want to fuck up or you'd risk having somebody flailing around behind you struggling to keep their feet with a live gun. There were four principle roles: the driver, the runner, the spotlighter and the shooter. Shooting was prized of course, but each role had its fun. Usually when spotting rabbits the goal is not to shoot the rabbit, but to whiz the bullet between its ears so as to make it sit. Then the runner gets his turn to pounce on the rabbit before it knows which way is up and wring its neck.
I'm not really sure what Lesley Goodman, John's wife, made of our arrival only a week or two after they'd moved in, but it was after dark. We crunched up their gravel driveway, through the pine trees and cypress trees that lined it. My father in the cabin with his thick Irish face and terry-toweling hat pulled down low over his brow in a rusted out pick up that had only been saved from the tip by necessity. My brother and I on the back wide-eyed and keen with 50 mile an hour hair having stood on the tray all the way from our place to the Goodman's. A large spotlight and guns could be glimpsed through the cabin windows and with the dogs howling and stretching their chains as they snapped at the possibility of intruders it must have been unsettling if not downright frightening for a city girl.
But John was keen, perhaps overly so. This was what it was all about for him. This was giving up the city; and this bunch of hillbillies was going to be his first foray into another life, a better life though Lesley was probably thinking a decidedly shorter life. It wasn't like we really had time to give John a crash course in the arcania of spotlighting. We gave him a briefing of sorts on the roles each of us would play and he opted to sit it out in the front cabin with dad just to see how we did it. That was always a nice option anyway because spotlighting did have one major downside, it was frigging cold.
We couldn't have long left the Goodman's when we spotted the first enemy for the night, a fox. Foxes are notoriously difficult to spot as the light stops them only momentarily so you need to get a shot off quick and if it's over any distance and they start moving you have to lead them slightly. I was first up with the rifle, a small bolt action Winchester 22, all that was required. I guess I hit him, because I know that I traded places with my brother so that I got the spot and he the gun. Rabbits unlike foxes will sit if you are close enough and the light is intense enough. In fact they will even come crawling toward the light. It a weird thing to see especially when one considers the fate that awaits them as they crawl toward their enemy's position. Typically you don't shoot at a rabbit that does this because there's little point and the runner just takes off after them. That is exactly what happened next. I spotted a rabbit not minutes after the fox just yards in front of the truck. One tap. Truck stops. There he is. Loud whisper. I've got him. Safety off. Cabin door opens. John leaps out. What the fuck. Gun fires. John falls forward. Mad scramble. John stands up. Rabbit in hand. “That's how it's done boys,” he says with a grin.
You can bet your life on that one John, and you did.
© Fox
There's a famous Fox family photo of my brothers, sisters and cousins all under 13 and each armed with a rifle of some description. It's a picture that would've cheered the heart of Charles Taylor; and though we weren't freedom fighters, as kids, we fought a war for economic supremacy over a range of fauna mostly rabbits, 'roos and foxes. I didn't know anyone at that time who didn't share our blood lust. There were a variety of missions we undertook to eradicate our lands of these low lives from chemical weapons to fumagate them, traps to ambush them, and a biological weapon called mixymytosis to blind them; however, the mission we were most enthusiastic about was the nighttime raid known as spotlighting.
There weren't any aspects about spotlighting that I didn't like and there were two basic approaches, one involved the use of polythene piping packed with mud and dirt at one end to make an effective knobkerry and the other, rifles. Because our Scoutmaster had some sense, spotlighting with rifles was banned on Scout outings. This meant that we had to settle for the knobkerry. It also meant our prey was restricted to rabbits. I've never heard of anybody taking on a 'roo with a club, though I have heard one quite disturbing story of a stoning. That aside, spotlighting in Scouts was about as much fun as a farm kid could imagine having. The basic approach was to all clamor on the front bonnet of the Scoutmaster's ancient Austin whilst we took turns holding the spotlight. The light would pan the night pasture illuminating the occasional eyes of sheep and cattle until hopefully they'd settle on the eyes of a rabbit momentarily transfixing it with blindness. A frenzied rush ensued as we scrambled off the moving Austin taking care, in that chaos, not to block the spotlight and make as little noise as possible whilst running at full tilt in a large arch to take up our individual positions surrounding the rabbit. The rabbit's situation was typically hopeless but not always. Its only option was to run the gauntlet and for us that was when the fun began. It's frightening thinking back on it now because what ensued was Rwandan in its savagery. By contrast, spotlighting with a rifle was far more civilized at a stretch something akin to the debate over chemical versus conventional warfare.
One of our neighbors was a man called John Goodman. John was the sort of guy who almost everybody admired and had an instant affinity with. He had rugged good looks complimented by a handlebar moustache, back when they were fashionable, and was something of a local sports star being coveted by the local teams for his footballing, and cricket ability as well as his general affability. He and his wife, an artist, had what could only be described as a whimsical love that lasted. His farm wasn't large enough to support his family so to supplement his income he plied his trade as a plumber. This meant my father had fairly regular contact with John. They shared a boundary fence, which was in their mutual interest to maintain, and my father had endless requirements for a plumber. So it was that John became a frequent visitor to our place and struck up a friendship with my father. Dad would wax with him nostalgically about his days as a publican in Melbourne next to the dry suburb of Box Hill where John had originally came from, and John for his part learned the ins and outs of farming from the hands of a master farmer, something my father surely was. It was well before this time, however, that dad invited John to come spotlighting with us. John had just moved to the district and dad thought it would make a nice icebreaker activity. Though I'm sure he had another term for it.
The thing about spotlighting with guns is that communication is paramount. Hardly a month went by during the spring or autumn months that the news didn't carry a story of an accidental shooting death. Whilst we had no formal training in the use of firearms we had a pretty strict routine we had to follow. For spotlighting we usually drove an old Toyota Litestout pick up and when we were out in the paddocks my brothers and I stood on the tray and used a series of knocks on the roof of the cabin to let my father know to stop if we'd spotted the enemy. It wasn't exactly Morse code more of the order of one tap for stop and two for move on, but it was the sort of thing you didn't want to fuck up or you'd risk having somebody flailing around behind you struggling to keep their feet with a live gun. There were four principle roles: the driver, the runner, the spotlighter and the shooter. Shooting was prized of course, but each role had its fun. Usually when spotting rabbits the goal is not to shoot the rabbit, but to whiz the bullet between its ears so as to make it sit. Then the runner gets his turn to pounce on the rabbit before it knows which way is up and wring its neck.
I'm not really sure what Lesley Goodman, John's wife, made of our arrival only a week or two after they'd moved in, but it was after dark. We crunched up their gravel driveway, through the pine trees and cypress trees that lined it. My father in the cabin with his thick Irish face and terry-toweling hat pulled down low over his brow in a rusted out pick up that had only been saved from the tip by necessity. My brother and I on the back wide-eyed and keen with 50 mile an hour hair having stood on the tray all the way from our place to the Goodman's. A large spotlight and guns could be glimpsed through the cabin windows and with the dogs howling and stretching their chains as they snapped at the possibility of intruders it must have been unsettling if not downright frightening for a city girl.
But John was keen, perhaps overly so. This was what it was all about for him. This was giving up the city; and this bunch of hillbillies was going to be his first foray into another life, a better life though Lesley was probably thinking a decidedly shorter life. It wasn't like we really had time to give John a crash course in the arcania of spotlighting. We gave him a briefing of sorts on the roles each of us would play and he opted to sit it out in the front cabin with dad just to see how we did it. That was always a nice option anyway because spotlighting did have one major downside, it was frigging cold.
We couldn't have long left the Goodman's when we spotted the first enemy for the night, a fox. Foxes are notoriously difficult to spot as the light stops them only momentarily so you need to get a shot off quick and if it's over any distance and they start moving you have to lead them slightly. I was first up with the rifle, a small bolt action Winchester 22, all that was required. I guess I hit him, because I know that I traded places with my brother so that I got the spot and he the gun. Rabbits unlike foxes will sit if you are close enough and the light is intense enough. In fact they will even come crawling toward the light. It a weird thing to see especially when one considers the fate that awaits them as they crawl toward their enemy's position. Typically you don't shoot at a rabbit that does this because there's little point and the runner just takes off after them. That is exactly what happened next. I spotted a rabbit not minutes after the fox just yards in front of the truck. One tap. Truck stops. There he is. Loud whisper. I've got him. Safety off. Cabin door opens. John leaps out. What the fuck. Gun fires. John falls forward. Mad scramble. John stands up. Rabbit in hand. “That's how it's done boys,” he says with a grin.
You can bet your life on that one John, and you did.
posted by Fox at 6:11 PM
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